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November 2006

On a more subdued note, the NYT article on tonic induced that
feeling the Germans likely have a word for of a good idea that you
forgot about and someone else has realized. In The United States of Arugula,
David Kamp describes "how we became a gourmet nation." If anything, he
understates the scale of this process, which I think of as the Maker's
Markization of America. In the winter, my mom usually has a whiskey
sour as an evening
cocktail. Once upon a time, the whiskey was Jack
Daniels, and that was fine. At some point, the whiskey became Maker's
Mark, and the world continued to spin on. Fleur de Sel, American Spirit
cigarettes, heirloom tomatoes, Sam Adams, baby greens, free-range
eggs,
Parmesan not in a green can-- you can supply your own examples as you
see fit, and indeed, there are cases where the process has happened
more than once in the same niche. Sam Adams, say hello to my new
friend, Smuttynose. Indeed, even Maker's Mark has been pushed out of
its own niche by Knob Creek, leaving Maker's Mark as the Garrison Keillor of American whiskeys, neither embraced by the masses nor cherished by the elite.

From time to time, this process of Maker's Mark-ization happens in ways that are discernably wacky, viz Fleur -de-Sel gathered by the fairest virgins of Bretagne scattered on steaks from downer cows. Tonic is another example--as gins got more fancy and artisanal, the tonic stayed the same. About three years ago, I wondered about the absence of a ridiculously fancy tonic from the marketplace, but no more, and the ship with the tonic tycoons seems to have sailed. As one who has even been known to drink tonic straight, I'm looking forward to trying the fancy tonics. If one were cleverer, one could survey the food marketplace, and identify these kinds of asymmetries of luxury, and develop new products along the lines of the tonic that is just as conspicuous as the gin. All I got is this-- peanut oil. If you are paying $18/lb for a heritage bird, do you want to fry it in just any peanut oil? Feel free to steal this idea, though if possible suggest that the peanuts you use were developed by Thomas Jefferson. He is so popular right now.

In the spirit of the DI/DO "Special Drinks Issue," a handful of alcohol-fueled observations, as my hommage to Andy Capp, that lovable drunk:

This got left out of the last post, about things that are other than what they seem. Repeal Day, Dec 5th, the anniversary of the end of prohibition, is being touted as a new holiday that will focus on drinking, without any of the distractions of other holidays:

It’s easy! There are no outfits
to buy, costumes to rent, rivers to dye green. Simply celebrate the day
by stopping by your local bar, tavern, saloon, winery, distillery, or
brewhouse and having a drink. Pick up a six-pack on your way home from
work. Split a bottle of wine with a loved one. Buy a shot for a
stranger. Just do it because you can.

And yet. Considering that every holiday except for Easter has become a drinky one, do we need this? And yes, Elvira, I am looking at you. With Halloween, St. Pats, 16-19 pro football games, 12-13 college football games, the NCAA basketball tournament, promotions, 162-181 baseball games, births, Christmas, demotions, Thursdays, NASCAR, bosses, employees, deaths, weddings, the Oscars, divorces, elections, and fishing, we need a special day to remind us to drink?

Ray fans, as such, are united "against complicated cooking and 'f----e' culture"? Is indifference to what you eat a banner that really unites people? I don't care that much about professional tennis, but I do not feel the need to find like-minded people, and get together to declare our lack of interest in Roger Federer. Isaac Newton reminds us that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, but it is hard to see Ray as a Joan of Arc leading a horde daunted by obsessives like Sarah Deming to the promised land of Turkey Posole -- I think David Carr's explanation a few weeks back makes more sense:

Better is overrated? Out of context, the concept is kind of chilling, in that it suggests that the notion that quality is obsolete, and distinction outmoded, but the idea of a familiar face telling you to cook basically as you would if left to your own devices on a low-functioning night is compelling. Here, the teleimprimatur of the Food Network is critical, in that it dresses what she's doing as a practice, interchangable with the practice of other chefs. Emeril cooks Cajun, Rach cuts corners. It is all good, and evidently, equally good, as the concept of "better" has vanished. I suppose that means no more Bordieu, luckily.

And oh yeah, wine in juiceboxes at the House of Blues. Before you get all, like "I am glad Alexis Lichine did not life to see this day," remember that the graver offense is against the memory of Robert Johnson. If, as ludicrous as the premise is, the premise of THOB is that it is some kind of simulacrum of a Mississippi roadhouse, then what the fuck are they doing serving wine in any format? Do you think Leadbelly had had one too many glasses of a low-end Cab from Napa when he killed that guy? Did Robert Johnson split a jug of Pinot Grigio with the Devil before he sold him his soul?**Before you bring up the song "Drinking Wine (Spo-De-O)" recall that the wine in question a) costs fifteen cents a bottle, and is b) available in a variety of berry flavors.

It's been here for years. I was getting ready to poke fun at the NY Times for running the exact same "rye is back" story the LAT ran a year ago,* but in looking for my post about the LAT rye comeback article, I saw that I'd also used the same LL Cool J reset the last time a newspaper called the Times ran a story on the "comeback" of this spirit, which is a pantry staple in my household. So glass internet houses, so forth. Discovering that my reaction was almost exactly the same a year ago does make me me sympathetic to one of the challenges of writing about food for a newspaper -- they come out every day, year after year, and people will continue to want the
same kinds of information, which may explain the high attrition rate in such jobs. (On a related note, I was recently able to confirm my hunch that it is impossible to write one of those obligatory Thanksgiving meal stories without having a serious Plath moment.) So, instead of grumbling that East Coast Times is jacking stories from West Coast Times, and risk setting off some sort of Biggie/Tupac redux with food section editors, or grousing that so many of the ryes in the NYT article were stratospherically priced, I'll share a question the article raised. One of the more celebrated ryes in the NYT article is:

Now, while Karl Malden certainly could have been running shine the way he drove around those Streets of San Francisco, it is not generally an area one associates with whiskey production.** On further reflection, however, so what? I could be wrong about this, and I am eager to be set straight by the any spirits geeks lurking out there. Whiskey is more industrial, or at least artisanal, than agricultural -- no one, to my knowledge, talks about specific crus of grains that produce special whiskeys. By analogy with wine, the art in whiskey seems to lie more in the vinting, than in the grape, or the terroir. If this is the case, is there any special reason why such a fetish is made of the location of the distillery? Evidently, the legal requirements governing what can be called "Bourbon" concern grain proportions, rather than any kind of region, but in the public imagination, there seems to be a strong connection between place and brand for American whiskeys. I'd welcome any explanation available for this seeming paradox.

It was refreshing to see a chef tackle this kind of question without resorting to the kind of bluster you see sometimes over at the Gullet, or from Michael "first they came for the foie" Ruhlman. Considering that the movie based on the book that is relentlesslycompared to this book is in theaters now, it might be a good time to forward the premise that the man who is preventing you from eating the hams Hoffman might cure in his basement is be none other than Upton Sinclair. A hypothesis:

In 1906, Upton Sinclair published The Jungle, an indictment of labor relations in America that happened to focus on the meat packing industry. In the single most persistent misreading ever, Americans ignored the fate of the Lithuanian immigrant family at the center of the novel, and clamored for sanitary reforms in the meatpacking industry. As a result, the 1906 Pure food and Drug Act.

The PF&DA limited the amout of poo food could legally contain, which is nice, but also inaugurated a legal fiction connecting industrial food and sanitary food. In the name of sanitation, slaughtering operations were centralized. Naturally, this concentration created as many problems as it solved, leading to HACCP:

I have a call out to an animal science person who I'm hoping will help fill in this picture, but it seems as if the insistence on the cold chain is a reaction to massive changes in scale in the meatpacking industry, and perhaps more important, the de-skilling of this industry, as described by Schlosser in FFN. To review: the next time you find yourself tucking into a sandwich of Honey Baked Ham, rather than a subtle indigenous Jamon Soho,* raise your 24 ounces of soda pop to Upton Sinclair.

*Or read it here
.** Hoffman seems to suggest it would be illegal for him to cure hams and sell them, even as part of a meal in his own restaurant. And yet Mario is noted for doing the same thing with jowls. Does Mario, a) have better lawyers b) more sack c) a cheery disregard for the USDA? d) all of the above?

In the good old days, Spy had its fictional "Ten Years ago in Spy" sidebar. Reading this item, I had the confusing sense of being in 1996, and reading a Ten years ago in Spy item from a Spy after the magazine had folded, referring to a ca. 1986 pairing of Dr. Detroit and Mr. Brightlights. I will be interested to see the label designs for Chateau des Deux Has-Beens. Failing that, if they can source grapes from one more country, they could call the winery "Six Flags Cellars." (Via Grub.)

My usually reflexive analogizer is stuck between Bridge on the River Kwai, (without the mission creep) and Erwin Rommel, (if the Panzer wizard were also a yoga instructor and published novelist). In all, impressive is the word. If you want to do the same next year, you can follow the detailed account of the ten days leading up to the feast. Two things worthy of note. 1) Ms. Deming, the impressario here, is also Mrs. Bad Plus. (Hope the lads stopped jamming long enough to help with the dishes.) This meal is well toward one end of the ambition scale, but is also a man-bites-dog kind of story, in that it describes a thorougly planned and well executed meal, rather than narrating a fiasco. The rarity of narratives like these, as opposed to Butterball helpline highlights (My husband accidentally krazy glued himself to the bird -- if I cut a
hole in the microwave door, can I thaw the bird with his hand attached?) suggests again that many, many of our fellow Americans are profoundly uncomfortable in the kitchen.

The LA Times has a detailed story on the definitively best way to cook a turkey. This bird seems to bring out a lot of this kind of thing, suggesting perhaps that the turkey is not, inherently, delicious. News flash: it does not matter.* Poach the damn thing in Proseco, put it in a hammock lined with George Foreman grills, or go sous vide, as your tradition and preference move you. I said it before, but it bears repeating -- the excellent thing about this holiday, and the reason why today so many of us will be cooling our heels in Mpls, Atlanta, Detroit , Charlotte, Denver, or Pittsburgh airports, pondering the second 20oz draft, while keeping an ear cocked for any information on the status of the flight home -- is that it is about the asses in the seats around the table, not what's on the table. If you are giving thanks for your $15/lb-studied-Sanskrit-at-Wesleyan-heritage-turkey, or that you'll be able to watch the Lions, Cowboys, and the Bayou Classic on a plasma screen TV, you are missing the point. Count yourself blessed for the people at your table, raise a glass to those who are not, and pour out a bottle or two of the nouveau for those irredeemably absent. It is, if you do it correctly, a holiday about hanging out with people you love, eating food, and watching football on television. With attorneys in Santa suits already revving their Harleys for the inevitable toys-for-tots rides that put a sheen of altruism on the naked consumerism of the Christmas season, I encourage you to spend this weekend focused on gluttony and sloth, and leave the greed until December. William DeVaughn has the day off, but Ira and Georgia are happy to step in and pass along his message.

*Caveat: Make does have a cool article on a turkey fryer derrick. The article mentions that fryer-related infernos are a familiar scenario for firefighters across the nation. The article does not mention that this risk is inherent to the appeal of frying a turkey. As an aside, the turkey fryer derrick contraption schematic, reminiscent as it is of the old Oilers' helmets would make a great logo for a tailgating cabal.

Imagine my frustration to discover that not everything I gripe about here is immediately remedied. Yesterday's fulminations included carping about silly drinks, and an hommage to George Orwell -- business as usual, in other words:

A perusal of The Food Section suggests I may have jumped the gun. I: Hungry people now construed as experiencing "very low food security." (Tell that to your niece the next time she wants to play Hungry Hungry Hippos.) II: People in Brooklyn are putting pork in their margaritas. Not only tempora, but also mores. It might be too much to hope that a real rain comes along for the USDA and the restaurant serving the pork margaritas, but I can't root against it.

I have been known to be a trifle involved on the question of authorship and receipts, but the problem with these cookies seems like something even these guys could suss out. Blithely subbing one nut for another is fine if you want to make cookies, but if your premise is being the NYT/LAT OmbudsKitchen, you are no longer making
"Regina Schrambling's cookies." This kind of foolishness, best left to amateurs, seems to be a product of this ill-considered initiative encouraging blogging every day in the month of November. More blog posts, to my mind, is low on the list of things the world needs now. Encouraging posting every 24 hours, regardless of content, is like playing the slow jams in the animal shelter. We have enough puppies and kittens, and the number of unread posts in your Bloglines or whatever suggests there is no imminent shortage of blog posts. In general, the process of evaluating a given receipt is enhanced by having the requisite ingredients to hand.